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Tech Firms, Don't Fence Us In
Vitaly Friedman writes "A proposed broadcasting law by the European Commission that would regulate emerging media formats in the same way as traditional broadcasting companies draws fire from the companies who say they will be hurt by a one-size-fits-all mentality. From the article 'An alliance of companies, including ITV, Yahoo, Vodafone, Intel and Cisco Systems, warned that a European Commission proposal to impose rules for traditional broadcasters on new media providers could have "unintended consequences" and hurt investment.'"
Business week carrying this story. But it has a couple of snippets missing from the wired report:
1) Its not An alliance of companies, including ITV, Yahoo, Vodafone, Intel and Cisco Systems, warned that...., its an alliance of British companies (and British subsiduries of US companies)
2) The wired article makes no mention of what the actual rules are. From business week: Those rules include limits on hate speech, advertising and the kind of content that can be broadcast to children.
I'm not a big fan of censorship by any stretch of the imagination & I don't particularly support these rules - but I do find wired's reporting of this situation a little skewed (I wonder if wired thinks they'll be effected by this?)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
This just seems to be a puff piece with no detail on what is proposed at all.
As far as I understand it, the proposed rules simply say that any advertising, hate speech or other content rules already applied today for other media in Europe would apply for the same media when online. Where's the problem?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
... to make sure that no signal crosses the French-German border!
Media and technology companies warned Tuesday that new European Union broadcasting rules could restrict the growth of emerging media formats such as video broadcasts through the internet and mobile phones.
This discussion is somewhat reminiscent of the development and standardization of GSM cell phones in Europe back in the 80's and early 90's. I'm sure many of the same arguments were made on both sides of the issue. Of course in the US it was decided to let the market sort out the best cell phone technology. Now here we are in the US with multiple competing mobile formats. It is a complicated undertaking for a consumer to decide which mobile operator to choose -- there are coverage maps, different network capabilities, non-overlapping phone models. Add to that the fact that despite all this "competition" the cost to the consumer is fairly high compared to Europe.
So, which is the best way to go? Mandate these sorts of things early on, or let the market evolve? As a died-in-the-wool capitalist I like the idea of letting the market choose the winner. Unfortunately sometimes you end up with what we have in today's US cell phone market - no clear winner and confusion for the consumers.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Is that online content doesn't know about borders. If I post a hate filled advertisement for children in the United States, will I find myself hauled before a French court?
No. European newspapers, broadcasters and other media organizations are the only ones affected, of course.
And likewise, European media happily plastered Janet Jacksons nipple everywhere on the net (as an example of US prudish overreaction, but anyway) without any rebuke from your FTC - and there's plenty of more serious material available in the EU that would be illegal had a US entity posted the same thing.
Any entity can only enforce regulations within their purview. That doesn't mean it's pointless.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...consuming more bandwidth over a greater area. Print is not broadcast.
Maybe so, but in practise anti-semitism = anti-Jew.
In other news, Hannibal Lector complains that anti-cannibalism laws unfairly restrict his choice of dishes.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Creating a new media format is like, well... like creating a new way to order your shoes. Having a law AGAINST, or even RELATED with it is "Law Fiction", or more accurate "Law Comedy".
I for one wellcome our European Union Law's Comedians!.
-Woof woof woof!
That is the problem. Hate speech is the catch-all that can be used to shut down any speech which someone or some government entity determines to be offensive.
When promoting hate speech rules the people behind them will always use the most extreme examples of speech they can find. Yet when applied it never ceases to amaze me what gets branded under the category. You will also see groups label the speech of others as "hate speech". With the help of their sister groups they can repeat this claim enough to where people are so used to hearing it they start to believe it true.
Remove the "hate speech" exception and it might be a plausible rule, leave it there and suddenly you may find one day that you cannot speak out against your "righteous leaders"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Riiiight. Just like European companies are the only ones affected by French copyright laws.
Companies wishing to do business in Europe are affected by European laws, no matter where they are based. Just like companies doing business in the US needs to follow US law, and companies in Japan need to follow Japanese law, wherever their headquarters may be located.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Europe has a much more deeper level of product regulations than the US. This is done for consumer protection.
...
Typically the extra rules you see in place in Europe are intended to either:
- Minimize or eliminate the possible damage to consumers caused by long term exposure to something which is contained in a product.
- Make sure that the consumer is informed of the possible negative long term effects of something contained in a product so that the consumer can do an informed choice.
Although things that harm you immediatly are forbidden in products in both Europe and the US, the difference of regulations in both places makes it so that for things that (might) harm you in the longer run, in Europe one or more of the following will happen:
- Its outright forbidden to sell products that contain it.
- Its outright forbidden to sell products that contain it to certain age groups (typically children).
- Manufacturers are mandated by law to inform the consumers of the possible negative side-effects of their products.
The law in the US is much more lax when it comes to both controlling access to products with possible negative long term effects and making sure that consumers know of those risks before actually buying a product.
Thus for example, there is a very well defined set of which chemical additives which are allowed on processed food products.
Another example is that (non-encrypted) public televisions broadcasters cannot broadcast "young adult" content before a specific hour and/or have to rate their content according to a standard "appropriated for age" table and provide those ratings when advertising that content and immediately before broadcasting it.
(Rules for subscription and/or cable broadcasters are usually less strict)
Which brings us to the OP:
- European legislators want to apply to all kinds of public broadcasters the same consumer protection rules already in place for those broadcasters that openly broadcast television by means of radio waves.
Thus things like providing timelly and appropriated information about the adequacy of their content to be viewed by kids.
What's the problem with that?
They're still perfectly free to setup direct-to-consumer online shops that show porn or whatever - consenting adults still have access to whatever they want to see while those parents that don't want their kids to see porn shows can more easilly know what to let or not their kids see.
PS: Note that for all the "regulations" in Europe versus "self-policing" in the US, there was still no problem whatsover with seing Janet Jackson's tittie on the tele around here (compared with some shows one can see after a certain hour of the day, seing JJ's breast in the open was positivelly mild) while in the US most broadcasters self-censured themselfs. No treats for anyone which guesses which place is in practice more open
I like the notion that a law could have "unintended consequences" and that this is somehow a novel concept. All laws have unintended consequences, it's the nature of the beast.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
and there's plenty of more serious material available in the EU that would be illegal had a US entity posted the same thing.
Care to elaborate on that one? Or are you just spewing crap like I think you are?
Perhaps you should look up some facts before spouting off.
It is true that a website was shut down as they posted the Mohammed cartoons. It should probably be noted in this that the site that posted the cartoons has known Neo-Nazi affiliation. The reason it was shut down was not so much that in can anger Muslems (I really don't give a flying fuck what they think.) but because there was a obvious danger to Swedish citizens in those countries should the cartoons be present. Naturally the Neo-Nazi affiliations of the site didn't help their case.
It should also be mentioned that the Swedish minister of foreign affairs (who were responsible for throwing their weight around and shutting the site down) RESIGNED due to to renewed controversy regarding her job. (There were previous issues but the shutdown was the last straw.)
I would hardly say that Sweden (or northern Europe) are anti-semetic. Most people don't really care if you're Jewish, Christian or whatever (most poeple here don't care about religion). And the bias we have considering Jews are typically those portraid in American media. (Insinuating that Jews are good with money and such.)
So please, take your fair and balanced views of other countries somewhere else.
The question of the parent post was: Why have separate rules for different transports? with the follow-up, why are any rules at all necessary?
I'd say we definately need laws which protect children from new media. The companies sure as hell aren't going to "think of the children" unless they are forced to. A company has one purpose, to make money. And they are responsible to the shareholders to do that as well as they can.
Regarding this debacle I say I'm all for putting constraints on content that eg Vodafone creates and streams to their subscribers. If nothing else they know who the owner of the account is and thus can limit to somthing appropriate.
OTOH it seems like the suggestion is not that Vodafone are responsible if a subscriber goes to Google Videos and downloads rauchy movies. Well, the lawmakers are politicians and thus probably clueless about the details. But such a suggestion is inane and should be openly ridiculed.
"surely the reason you can't call Californian sparkling wines is because Champagne is a trademark?"
California sparkling wines are called champagne, despite the fact they are not from Champagne (here's just an example) http://www.korbel.com/default.aspx. Just google for "Champagne" and "California".
There is an French and EU law (or directive) that says champagne must come from Champagne, although this rules has no effect outside the EU.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Regulations by the government have nothing to do with protecting the consumers or enabling the market to produce a quality product. All regulations are created to do is protect the favored companies (paternalism) and created an artificially high barrier to entry (protectionism).
In this situation, of course the government wants to regulate new media -- it will let them tax it, censor it, and prevent it from pushing the pro-State media companies into oblivion, where they should go.
Don't be surprised if everything is eventually owned by the largest media cartels, the kings of distribution. They've realized the mistake of investing in the online market, the most free and most anonymous place for people to interact. I look at the web as an anarcho-capitalist haven, a place that even when touched by ridiculous white market laws allows everyone to instantly circumvent them to the free black market.
The citizens here won't care, they'll see it is "for the children" or "against terrorism" and they'll bend over and accept it. Thankfully we have enough geeks around the world who will continue to work on new ways to transport information beneath the radar of the monsters in office.
If we had free speech, we would be able to explain how tyrannical our govt was, then we would all listen to each other's copmlaints and realize that we are not alone, then we'd all get togeather and shoot the bastards.
So you see, it's impossible for them to allow free speech. Only terrorists want free speech.
lockin' & loadin',
Andy Out!
I'm very, very much in favor of consumer choice. So very much indeed that i'm in favour of legalizing drugs - it's no business of the state to tell anyone what they can or not do with their own bodies.
Stil, consumer choice is only really a choice if the consumer has the necessary information to make an informed choice. Otherwise it's just a form of random selection disguised as choice.
In o practice, consumers do not have the time to, by themselfs, gather and interprete all the information necessary to make informed choices for every single buying decision. In practice only with expensive products will most consumers invest the time into getting informed before making a buying decision.
This is as valid for toothpaste as it is for choosing which television shows your 12 y.o. can see.
Without any mandatory, minimum level of information to consumers, all you have, unless you go through the trouble of investigating it yourself, is advertising. Advertising is not impartial information. Advertising is more like a beauty contest where there are no judges, everybody gets to make their own rules and everybody gets unlimited access to very good plastic surgeons before the big night. Thus it doesn't really inform you about the bad stuff, just about the good stuff and even that might be untruthfull (though in Europe there are also rules that prevent outright lies in adverts).
Worse still, even if a consumer does try to investigate further, since compared with individuals companies have almost unlimited resources to spread misinformation and/or hide otherwise negative reviews under a sea of irrelevant information, it is hardly a simple task to dig out the real information (for a good example notice how many people have died in the US from smoke induced illnesses all the while the tobacco companies were spreading disinformation. The companies were finally made to pay for it, but that didn't made any difference whatsoever to those which were already dead by then)
Thus without any rules the odds are always stacked against individual consumers.
Hence any laws mandating a minimum standard of product information are always welcome.
With this kind of laws consumers allways have available a basic ammount of information to make their choices. If they want to see/eat shit it's their choice.
Without them companies get to choose if they feed shit to consumers. As long as it is properly disguised (plenty of sauce) consumers will eat shit and not even notice it. They might feel sick later but they won't know why and will hapilly eat the same shit again the next day.
Now to answer the post i'm replying to:
- Why should products be excluded from this rules just because they are new, done in a new way, distriubuted in a new way (eg new media) or in the name of removing barriers to entry?
In other words, why should companies be allowed to covertely feed shit to consumers because they are new or their shit is new or they make or distribute shit in a new way???
For starters, cell phone usage is cheaper in the US. Even before you consider what you get in terms of free roaming nationwide.
I just checked Orange UK. Let's see, I'd like 200 minutes and 100 texts. That's 25 Pounds. That's about US$40.
Now, let's go to Cingular. Cingular not even being one of the cheaper plans. Let's see what I get for US$40. I get 450 minutes, with lots of night/weekend minutes too! To get that on Orange would cost 40 pounds. And don't forget, if you call a cellular phone in Europe, you have to pay. In the US, not only is the monthly fee of the cellular customer paying for the landline guy to call him free, but if they're both on cellular, there's a chance the call is "free".
I do hear your thing about coverage maps. That's an interesting point. To eliminate those, you not only all need to use the same protocol, you also need to have 100% cross roaming agreements. If there's a single tower out there you can't use, then you are in a "coverage map" situation.
When I was on Verizon (previously GTE) I didn't have any need for coverage maps, I just had coverage everywhere. When I switched to Sprint and then Cingular my coverage dropped, but it's still damn good. Unless you truly go away from the things of man, you're gonna have coverage.
The GSM mandate had some interesting effects. It is what made the massive problems with compatibility. I personally owned an AMPS phone before GSM started up. Why couldn't GSM have been AMPS compatible? The Europeans designed it to be incompatible, and then oddly put the blame on Americans for not using GSM. Well, we already had many customers who would have been hurt by making their ($500+) phones stop working. It simply wasn't an option. The same thing happened in Finland, where AMPS went on quite some time. The US finally eliminates AMPS next year.
I think the GSM mandate worked out in Europe because it helped break the problem with landline operators holding people over a barrel. Landlines were so expensive, cell coverage was cheaper than a landline and so it took off like a rocket and brought a valueable services to the customer. I think a GSM mandate in the US wouldn't have had nearly as many positive effects.
Addititionally, the GSM mandate is really hurting now. GSM is obsolete. It just doesn't have the bandwidth efficiency it needs. And to add insult to injury, the flexibility to add more towers to fix the problem is more limited. CDMA bests it greatly on both cases.
As I make my GSM calls with the GSM half rate codec, I notice how GSM service is noticeably inferior to other options. But in Europe, the law prevents any exploration of any other options. GSM is mandated in all the decent frequency bands (900/1800). 1800 already requires many many cell cites to prevent deadspots, since it can't get through walls well. 3G-type frequncies (2100 in Europe), won't provide any comptition (notably because the same operators own those frequencies).
It's too bad the phones on CDMA suck so bad, and Verizon thinks that phone features are something they should be able to charge for or remove.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
We already do get coverage in all the parts where people actually are.
Okay, well, not all parts. I can drive roads in Alpine county where there is no coverage. But Alpine county has a population density of less than 1 person per km^2.
There is some kind of massive misunderstanding being perpetuated here. We have plenty of cell phone coverage in the US. All the 3 major operators service over 98% of the population. The reason maps or other numbers make it look like we don't have coverage here is because Wyoming has 500,000 people in 253,554 km^2. And most of those are in cities. So you see the state on a coverage map and most of it is blank. But that's simply because there's no one to cover there. And it's mountainous, so you can't just do umbrella cells.
Just come to the US West sometime. Go to Wyoming, go to Idaho, go to Montana, go to Utah. Go to California, the most populous states in the nation. Just drive in from the coast or north of San Francisco. Heck go to Alaska. You'll see the magnitude of the idea of covering all the area of the US (or Canada for that matter).
But don't make a mistake. If you actually measure where people live, we have plenty of cell phone coverage in the US, on all 3 systems.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I believe that if you go back to the reasoning behind the existing rules, you'll find that the cornerstone is something about the "greater good" that legacy broadcasters are supposed to serve in exchange for getting exclusive access to the public radio spectrum.
The Internet does not work that way. What I watch on my video stream has no effect on your ability to watch your video stream/browse the web etc. It all rests solely on agreements between individual "broadcasters" and individual members of the audience.
If anything, because of this independent and voluntary nature, the Internet is closer to books than it is to TV. Would you propose banning books that promote "hate speech" next, in the name of a level playing field? What about a history student who's working on the rise of Nazism, would they have to get special permission from some Department Of Truth bureaucracy before looking up Mein Kampf in the library?
The word "anti-semitism" has nothing to do with reasonable categories of race or ethnicity at all. The original group of people it was being applied to (Germans from Jewish or partially Jewish families who were practicing Christians) were probably not by in large Semites ethnically at all. Just because the word "anti-semitism" contains the word "semite" is no more reason to associate the two than "through" containing "rough".
Further neither Hebrews nor Arabs are a race. I suggest you read up before posting.
You're right about the fees. Is the US the only location with fees all of a sudden? And again, you're getting a lot more stuff bundled in in the US due to the way incoming calls are billed.
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The high cost of phones isn't much different anywhere. Phones cost a lot. They are cheaper everywhere when subsidized, not just in the US. I personally don't like two year contracts, so I don't sign them. My last phone cost $40 with a 1-year cingular contract (which is now expired and I am month to month). You maybe should looked for a more stripped-down phone. High-end phones just cost a lot to make, so they cost a lot to buy.
I have no idea what you mean about how it's difficult to switch carriers. I have switched twice in 3 years. No problems. And if you have you own phone, it's even easier! I purchased my unlocked/unbranded phone and put it on Cingular myself.
See this link:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=au&lc=en&v
Just put your SIM in, select your country and carrier and click a few times and it sends a text to your phone with the setup info and you press "yes" and you're done. Easy as pie. Of course, it's no easier or tougher in Europe, since this service works worldwide.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Well, I can't really say I see how you claim that those points are facts or how what you are doing is following them to their logical conclusions. I guess I can adress the three statements you make though.
1) What is "this" referring to? Are you a Swede or are you insinuating that it's a statement I made?
Lets now include number 3) as it's essentially the same statement, though phrased slightly differently. I guess it's better rethoric if you have three statements instead of two.
Perhaps it should, again, be pointed out that shutting down that site was deemed incorrect and caused the ultimatily responsible minister to resign her post. I would say that's a pretty clear indication that it was not considered all right.
Now is freedom of speech more important than possible vandalism and attacks? Yes, I would say that it is. OTOH it's quite clear that what the neo-nazis were doing was only puring gasoline on the fire. They had no ulterior motive of doing this as a demonstration for freedom of speech. They did it because they hoped a lot of muslems would be pissed off.
Sadly you can't exclude idiots from being included in freedom of speech though. I'd say it's a pretty hard question. While I would protect the neo-nazis right to free speech normally I'm not sure I'd do it if I myself or people I know faced bodily harm in the process.
And there was a clear danger to people in those countries. Several embassies had been burned down (among them some completely unrelated to Denmark) and the people working there had been evacuated.
Now on to 2). Yes I agree with you. It is incredibly sad that some people are so misled and ignorant that they are willing to hurt others only for their religious beliefs. Even when the person they are hurting has nothing to do with the issue. It's hardly constrained to the problem of the Mohammed cartoons though, whenever dogma and religion rules you can run into that problem.
As such I think it's important that we try to educate these poor miserable people so they understand WHY we feel freedom of speech is important. Quite a few of them have a pretty severe lack of understanding of how the rest of the world works. All of this are only symptoms of growning pains of globalisation.
So to reiterate:
1) Do I think that it was incorrect that a ministry recommended that the site was shut down? (To be specific, it wasn't shut down by the Swedish government. Someone at that ministry called the ISP and recommended that they shut it down due to the current political climate.)
- Yes.
2) Do I think that it was adviceable to put those cartoons online to cause violent reactions in other countries?
- No.
3) Do I think the ISP should have shut the page down of their own accord.
- Yes. (Not as a government group. Simply as a concerned citizen.)
4) Do I think some religious fundamentalist should get a reality check?
- Yes. (And not only those related to cartoon problems.)
Appropriate would be not selling or advertising products which a person is not allowed to purchase. Eg alcohol or tobacco to minors.
The rules for this shouldn't be specific for mobile content, it should be that the same rules applying for TV, radio or print should be used for mobile content.
Eg in Sweden it's not allowed to have commersials directed towards children. The reasoning being that children are impressionable and not as capable as an adult to understand that it's propaganda. (I'm sure *you* are much smarter than all adults.) Consider it like how movies are rated PG-13 and such. If you make an online video rental then it would make sense that it has some kind of attempt to enforce those restrictions. If nothing else than for good measure.
Naturally this is only enforceable inside Sweden. So several channels have moved their offices to London and broadcast via satellite.
I guess you're right though about the road to hell. But I doubt that the road to heaven is lined with people selling tobacco to children.
GSM is outmoded, and the only thing it is doing better for the customer here is providing choice of phones. It doesn't provide as good coverage, as much bandwidth for data users and it's tougher for operators to run!
Having had all 3 major systems here in the US in the last 3 years, I don't see a problem with any of them. I don't know what you heard, but our systems work well. And they have been working well (including my own phone) since before GSM even existed.
The invisible hand has driven out the systems that don't work as well as others (IS-136, and it hasn't been possible to get an AMPS phone activated for two years). It'd drive out the next worst system too, except it can't, the next worst system is GSM.
I do appreciate that Europe regulated in such a way as to make a market for different kinds of phones. That's great. That just doesn't exist on CDMA, because the CDMA operators don't want it, and they can make sure it doesn't happen.
But for someone like my father, who was recently put onto GSM from IS-136 (TDMA), he has nothing but complaints. He doesn't care about fancy phones, and the coverage sucks because GSM was made incompatible with the systems that were already in use and thus he can only use new towers.
GSM is nothing but pain for him, and it's pain because of the boneheaded decisions made in Europe circa 1992 and enforced by law.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Sprint rolled out 3G 3 years ago also, and successfully, unlike the early Japan 3G rollout which was aborted and undone.
You're mistakenly putting the US in some kind of phone ghetto.
Yes, I do agree about the what GSM makes it possible not only technically, but in a market fashion to sell phones that have additional features. It really leads the way in this. It's why I use GSM, because I like fancy phones. But for people like my father who don't care about fancy phones, it gets them zero.
I would say that although GSM unquestionably is the strongest force in this trend, and still leads, the other systems pull their weight. Push-to-talk (may all users of it die horrible deaths) didn't start on GSM (it came from iDEN and CDMA 2000 got it 2nd). IS-136 created voicemail notification and caller ID before GSM even started.
CDMA providers don't want this because they would rather sell you features. Sprint made a fair bit of money off selling voice dialing as a service. Putting it in the phone removes revenue. Providers don't want Bluetooth data service (leashing) because it makes it difficult for them to provide "unlimited data service" profitably. They figure you can only push so much data surfing the web on a phone with that awful display and joystick, but with leashing I can push a month's worth of data in an hour from my computer through my phone. Even Danger, with the best browser in the business and always-on AIM IM has to fight with operators over this because customers will easily use more bandwidth than they are really paying for at $20 a month.
Look at camera phones. Providers like camera phones, they even subsidize them, because once you take the picture they figure you have to email it to yourself to save it or let others view it. But with Bluetooth you can just send the pic to your computer next time you are there without paying the operator. So what did Verizon (CDMA operator) do about this? They convinced Motorola to disable the Bluetooth file transfer feature on the v710 phone on Verizon! They want Bluetooth because then they can sell you an overpriced Bluetooth headset accessory, but they didn't want file transfer, so they disabled it.
Now, on GSM they can't stop me, I can buy an unbranded phone (and I do) with loads of features and put my SIM in. On Verizon or Sprint, they only offer what they want, there is virtually no market for phones except through the provider, and if you did happen to find a 3rd party phone, they might not even activate it for you.
I left Verizon because they were controlling the phones too much, a feature never appeared unless they thought it was to their advantage. So no feature appeared until the other operators proved it made sense (they were the last US operator to offer a Bluetooth phone). I felt they were over controlling. Much like the movie industry would have killed the VCR if they could have in the early days (see Jack Valenti's "Boston Strangler" comments), I felt Verizon was not only hurting me, but hurting themselves.
I left Verizon because of this. I went to Sprint, because they had the only CDMA Bluetooth phone in the US (outside of Korea actually). Well, it turned out to be truly terrible (Sony-Ericsson T608) and their coverage sucked too, so I went to GSM and the phones are indeed cool on GSM.
As to your comments about IS-136 being incompatible, your comments are 180 degrees off and typify the complete misunderstanding Europeans have about GSM and why the US is incompatible.
The operator my dad uses (Cingular) was a AMPS operator (well, the component parts of the now merged company) before GSM even existed. They used IS-136 because it was COMPATIBLE, and not GSM because it was designed to be incompatible. Years later this stupid European decision is still hurting people like my dad, because if GSM was compatible, companies who had preexisting customers (i.e. revenue to protect) would have switched to GSM in the mid 90s instead of setting up or continuing with IS-136. And my father wouldn't have been
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Again, because GSM was made to be incompatible, and then enforced by law (plus some other, more positive things), the EU forced their system out there. This would have been fine if it were compatible, US companies would have switched to GSM in 1995 simply for the capacity. Most of their customers were on AMPS, not IS-136, so they could have made the digital solution GSM. Except GSM was incompatible, so they had to choose between their current customer and GSM, a system that provided more capacity and more features (whether they wanted to provide them or not).
If the systems were compatible, my father wouldn't be switching today, he would have had a GSM phone when he went digital in the late 90s. Then rural Michigan and Ohio wouldn't be chock-a-block with towers that only do IS-136 and AMPS. So even if he got a digital-only phone (very likely nowadays), he would have his choice of towers that did GSM and AMPS. And he wouldn't have coverage problems. It isn't the fragmentation that killed him, it's the consolidation, the failure of IS-136 as a viable system and the replacement of it with GSM, and again, the fact that GSM cannot provide even analog compatibility during that switchover)
I don't feel Europe made a mistake choosing GSM. I feel that legislating it (especially today) is a disaster given its incompatibility. I strongly feel making it incompatible was a mistake. CDMA 2000 (even IS-95) provides more available call capacity than GSM (per MHz) and is compatible with AMPS. There was no reason to make the new digital systems incompatible with existing AMPS/TAC (or NMT, sorry about that mistake, I thought Lapland used AMPS, not AMPS/TAC).
Really, Europe had such a strong need for a digital system, because given the cost of landlines, the need for larger numbers of cell phones fast was very evident. In the US, it took years for companies to put people on IS-136 and IS-95. When I bought my first digital phone (in 1997, http://press.nokia.com/PR/199708/778136_5.html, I can't believe I had my analog phone for 4 years!) GTE (nee Verizon) only sold digital to business customers. I had to go through my employer as a front to get a digital phone! Of course, by this time, GSM had been serving customers in Europe for several years, providing much more bandwidth than the AMPS GTE was pushing on over 90% of their customers. (Note that Cellular One nee AT&T had IS-54 in 1992 selling Motorola "aqua phones" to business customers only also). The US could wait for digital cellular to evolve, Europe really couldn't.
A few items related to the argument, but not argumentative:
Lapland is in Finland, not Sweden. I'm sure Sweden (Ericsson) had a lot of NMT too, but I was referring to Finland (Nokia). Lapland is notable because it was the first application of fixed wireless (the 450 MHz version of NMT would be great for this, it could span longer distances than GSM can at any frequency), and was a huge success showing how wireless can reduce the "last mile" problem in very sparsely populated areas. Since it was a roaring success and did what GSM couldn't do, it was the last system to tumble to GSM (in the late 90s I believe) in Europe.
IS-136 is a compatible follow on to IS-54 (IS-54B) that provided what is referred to in the US as "PCS". PCS was a marketing term created to encompass basically what GSM brought to the table, which was voice mail notification, text messages and caller ID (although voice mail notification and caller ID were grafted into NAMPS and even AMPS!). IS-54B and IS-136 provided the ability to offer digital cellular (with 3X capacity and much longer standby times) over the same systems as AMPS. They were wildly successful, the first true national digital coverage in the US was with Cellular One over IS-136. This allowed Cellular One to offer nationwide roaming that actually worked and revolutionized the market. They are not best described as just "digital AMPS", even though IS-54 was marketed as such for a while. IS-136
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
They are cheaper everywhere when subsidized, not just in the US.
The problem with the U.S., is that you are subsidizing phones when you sign up with a carrier, reguardless of wether you get one or not, so you might as well get one. i.e. Sprint will still charge you the same $45 a month if you get a phone with the plan or bring your own and go month to month. This effectivly kills the market for independant cell phones in the States, making them much more expensive.
I have no idea what you mean about how it's difficult to switch carriers. I have switched twice in 3 years. No problems. And if you have you own phone, it's even easier! I purchased my unlocked/unbranded phone and put it on Cingular myself.
The problem is that carriers only want to offer locked phones. To get around this involves jumping through hoops; you need to find an unlock code online or make up a story for Verizon about how you're traveling out of the country and need a code. Sure you can buy an equivilant phone of your own and not have to put up with this crap, but it will cost you a pretty penny to do so.